John Hume is certainly a great Irishman. But given the fact that he was competing against Michael Collins and Bono in the RTE opinion poll, I cannot shake the feeling that Daniel O'Connell, Edmund Burke, the Duke of Wellington, Robert Boyle, WB Yeats and a plethora of other Irish philosophers, writers, scientists and politicians must be turning in their graves.

Kevin James O'Mahony
San Jose, California

Please sign in or register with Independent.ie for free access to Opinions.